Canada: Night Sky Odyssey is Futuristic Star Gazing at Glen Sutton, Quebec
By sandra. Filed in Canada, Children, Family Fun, Montreal, Nature, Quebec |
Entertainment has always been the stars – today it is the movie, TV and sports ones, but yesteryear it was the sky kind. For thousands of years, the night sky was everyone’s television or computer screen.
There were the stars, of course, and then the planets – if you were lucky enough to have a telescope. So it isn’t surprising that there were tales made up of the different formations of stars. Same stars but different tales for different countries.
In Quebec, at National Geographic ObservEtoiles (Night Sky Odyssey) you can enjoy a tiny bit of yesteryear by climbing a mountai
n by car and then walking through the trail to a dark sky summit in Glen Sutton. Then in total contrast, you get to experience
futuristic augmented reality through specially designed headsets. You gaze through them to see 3D digital renderings of the planets or the constellations. The show consists of the re-telling of the tales of the bears, a scorpion, a snake, a hunter, the scales of justice and always, a love affair, of course. Then you see and learn about the colorful planets, that Saturn’s rings are made of ice and Uranus is sitting on its side. Later on, a high powered laser pointer is used to pinpoint objects in the actual sky that night. Now we know that the North Star barely moves (so that’s why it was always used it for navigating!) and that satellites move in orbital paths depending on their functions.
This was Jeremy Fontana’s idea. He found himself in Glen Sutton, one of the only ten places in Canada with a dark sky designation, meaning there is no light pollution – and then that Quebecois artistic Eureka moment happened. He realized it was time to demystify the night sky to the generations who no longer knew it. So we are the lucky ones to see this first, as he has partnered with National Geographic to export this to national parks and cruise ships.
If you’re lucky, (we were!) you might get to see the space station toodle along. We learned that it circles the globe 16 times a day, giving the astronauts sixteen sunrises and sunsets. We waved but couldn’t see if they waved back.
In Quebec: National Geographic ObservEtoiles at Au Diable Vert
169, chemin Staines, Glen Sutton, (Québec) J0E 2K0 Canada
Telephone: 450-538-5639
Price: $45.99 which includes the headsets to take home along with the app
www.observetoiles.com www.audiablevert.com
Note: Right now the shows in Quebec are predominantly in French